Beck-Ola

Beck-Ola is the second studio album by English guitarist Jeff Beck, released in 1969 in the United Kingdom on Columbia Records and in the United States on Epic Records. It peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard 200, and at No. 39 on the British album chart.[1] The album’s title puns on the name of the Rock-Ola jukebox company.

Beck-Ola
Studio album by The Jeff Beck Group
Released	June 1969
Recorded	3–19 April 1969
Studio	De Lane Lea, Abbey Road and Trident, London; Mirasound, New York City
Genre	Blues rock hard rock heavy metal
Length	30:29
Label	EMI Columbia (UK) Epic (US)
Producer	Mickie Most
The Jeff Beck Group chronology
Truth (1968) Beck-Ola (1969) Rough and Ready (1971)

Background and content

After the release of their previous album Truth, by the end of 1968 drummer Micky Waller was replaced by Tony Newman, as Jeff Beck wanted to take the music in a heavier direction and he viewed Waller as more of a finesse drummer in the style of Motown.[2] Pianist Nicky Hopkins, who had also played on Truth, was asked to join the band full-time for their work in the studio.

Recording sessions for the album took place over six days in April 1969 – the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 10th, 11th and 19th.[3] Two covers of Elvis Presley tunes were chosen, "All Shook Up" and "Jailhouse Rock", as well as "Girl From Mill Valley", an instrumental by and prominently featuring Hopkins. The remaining four tracks consist of band originals, with the instrumental "Rice Pudding" ending the album dramatically cold. The album cover features a reproduction of Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte's The Listening Room. On the back cover to the original vinyl issue, beside "Beck-Ola" is written the tag "Cosa Nostra", Italian for "Our Thing".

Following the sessions for this album, the Jeff Beck Group toured the United States. They were scheduled to play Woodstock and are listed on posters promoting the festival, but by then internal friction had reached the breaking point and both Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart were out of the band.[4] Stewart and Wood would form The Faces with members of the Small Faces in 1969, while Hopkins played Woodstock with Jefferson Airplane, joined Quicksilver Messenger Service, and toured the world with The Rolling Stones in 1971, 1972 and 1973. Beck himself would be out of commission by December due to an automobile accident.

Reception and legacy

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
Rolling Stone	(favorable) [6]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[7]
The Village Voice	C–[8]

In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, music critic Robert Christgau was unimpressed by the album and facetiously remarked that Stewart and Beck had encouraged Hopkins' overblown playing.[8] At the time, Beck commented on the album cover the impossibility of coming up with anything original, and that Beck-Ola indeed was not.[3] Although a short album at half an hour, along with its predecessor it is regarded as a seminal work of heavy metal due to its use of blues toward a hard rock approach and the squaring off of Beck's guitar against Stewart's vocals, and claims that it was duplicated the same year by Beck's confederate Jimmy Page with his singer Robert Plant in Led Zeppelin[9], although in actual fact Zeppelin had been displaying such style since the summer of 1968.

On 10 October 2006, Legacy Recordings remastered and reissued the album for compact disc with four bonus tracks, all of which had been previously unreleased. Included were two early takes of the Presley covers, one done at Abbey Road Studios in January, a jam on "Sweet Little Angel" by B.B. King done the previous November with the Waller edition of the band, and a song intended as a single by producer Mickie Most but never issued.[3]

Track listing

Side one

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"All Shook Up"	Otis Blackwell, Elvis Presley	4:50
2.	"Spanish Boots"	Ronnie Wood, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart	3:34
3.	"Girl from Mill Valley"	Nicky Hopkins	3:45
4.	"Jailhouse Rock"	Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller	3:14

Side two

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Plynth (Water Down the Drain)"	Hopkins, Wood, Stewart	3:05
2.	"The Hangman's Knee"	Tony Newman, Beck, Hopkins, Stewart, Wood	4:47
3.	"Rice Pudding"	Hopkins, Wood, Beck, Newman	7:22

• Sides one and two were combined as tracks 1–7 on CD reissues.

2004 CD bonus tracks

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
8.	"Sweet Little Angel"	B.B. King	7:57
9.	"Throw Down a Line"	Hank Marvin	2:54
10.	"All Shook Up (Early version)"	Blackwell, Presley	3:18
11.	"Jailhouse Rock (Early version)"	Leiber, Stoller	3:11

Personnel

• Jeff Beck – guitars, backing vocals on "Throw Down a Line"
• Rod Stewart – lead vocals
• Nicky Hopkins – piano and organ
• Ronnie Wood – bass guitar
• Tony Newman – drums

Additional personnel

• Micky Waller – drums on "Sweet Little Angel"
• Mickie Most – producer

References

1. UK Chart Stats retrieved 04/02/11
2. Charles Shaar Murray. Beck-Ola, 2006 reissue, Legacy Recordings 82876 77351 2, liner notes.
3. Murray, Beck-Ola reissue liner notes.
4. John Gray. Rod Stewart: The Visual Documentary. London: Omnibus Press, 1992, ISBN 0-7119-2906-8, p. 22.
5. AllMusic review
6. Gerson, Ben (9 August 1969). "Records". Rolling Stone. San Francisco: Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. (39): 36. Retrieved 1 October 2015.
7. Rolling Stone review
8. Christgau, Robert (15 January 1970). "Consumer Guide (6)". The Village Voice. New York. Retrieved 18 July 2014.
9. Nick Logan and Bob Woffinden, editors. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Harmony Books, 1977, p. 28.